Right to Life

She got off the couch without a word. Just as glad to be out of it. McCann's eyes followed her and then settled back on his.

"You really expect to do this?"

"Yes."

"But you can't just… kidnap somebody. What about consent?"

"We'll get her consent."

"How in the world will you do that?"

"That'll have to be our business, I'm afraid."

He shook his head. "Not the Lord's business, I think."

"Maybe yes, maybe no. Is abortion the Lord's business?"

"We're trying to end that."

"I know. In our way so are we. Here's one kid who's not going to get sucked out of his mother's womb like some dustball off a living room floor."

"But the real mother…"

Kath handed him the second beer and sat down beside him again. "To hell with the real mother. She was going to kill it."

"It?"

"The baby. Him. Her. Whatever."

The man glared at him. Stood up.

"All right, let's see her, then. Let's see this… this brood mare of yours!"

"I gotta tell you. I don't like your tone, McCann."

"I don't like your choice of words, either. A child is not an it. Motherhood is a blessed state and you cannot simply lift your choice of mothers off the street. Where is she? In the basement? That's where I'd keep my prisoners."

The man was actually trembling with anger. The self-righteous little bastard. He shook his finger at both of them and headed for the basement door.

"Isaiah 7:3. Amend your ways and doings, all ye whores and defilers…"

Something inside him gave a desperate lurch and he was up off the couch reaching for the second bottle and suddenly he was armed and fucking dangerous, one of the bottles dripping with cool sweat, he had them by the neck and he swung the empty down over the man's ear, felt the impact and heard and watched it shatter and then he was looking down at his hand again, the suddenly truncated neck of the bottle sticking jagged and deep into the pad of flesh between thumb and forefinger. He looked up and saw the man turn trying to say something and swung the other bottle, the one that was almost full, directly into his face.

It was a kind of magic he thought what a simple glass bottle could do. One moment the face was full of fury and indignation and the next full of surprise and pain because the second bottle had shattered too but this time full across his mouth, a huge shard of brown glass pushed through the upper lip and out his cheek, foam and blood mingling in a bright pink slime riding down his chin.

Dimly he could hear Kath scream and the little man roaring deep and anguished but his brain was roaring even louder saying, finish it, you got to finish it! even as McCann reached for him. He pivoted and half-dived and half-fell over to the end table, the plate that had held last night's stuffing clattering to the floor, the fork which was his target in his hand and he reached up off the floor as McCann lunged for him, McCann unaccountably still wanting to fight and shoved it deep into the man's neck and twisted, twisted fast back and forth inside him, sinking it deeper until the hands closed over his own and tore them away with an unexpected force and tore the fork from his throat and sent it sailing across the room.

The man's growl gurgled in his throat, the throat pulsing blood through his clasped hands like Steven's own first pulsing orgasm when he was a boy, blood rolling off the pierced cheek and spraying from his throat over the throw-rug in front of the TV and over the TV screen where Jackie Chan fought on as he staggered to one knee and finish it finish it still wailed in his ears so he tore the shard of glass out of the palm of his hand and ripped the plug from the heavy brass standing lamp beside the couch and grabbed it by the neck and brought the base of it across McCann's face as hard as he could hitting him with five solid pounds of brass, a sound like metal striking a bowling ball, knocked him sideways to the floor,'blood spraying the wall and the mirror over the fireplace in the wide arc of his fall. He stood over him and brought the base down on his head, he didn't know how many times, over and over until the sickening thuds turned gradually softer, until the body stopped twitching and the flow of blood grew thick and languid as a mudslide. Until he could barely even lift the thing any more and collapsed to his knees beside him.

He realized he was crying. He looked at the mangled head.

He got up on quivering legs and rushed to the sink and delivered himself up of cold bread stuffing and meat loaf dinner.

He turned on the tap and the switch on the disposal unit and rinsed the stuff away and rinsed the gash between thumb and forefinger. With the other hand he splashed his face. The cold water seemed to revive him. The cut continued to seep blood in regular pulses so he wrapped it with a clean dish towel out of the drawer and used his teeth and his good hand to tie it tight.